The U.S. Department of Labor announced Thursday the number of applications for unemployment aid fell by 43,000 last week. On a seasonally-adjusted basis, that would mean 265,000 Americans filing initial claims last week — the lowest amount since April of 2000.

Supporters of the Keystone XL pipeline say the project is a critically needed piece of infrastructure, while critics argue that it could be devastating to the environment. It is hard to tell who is right, but when forming an opinion everyone is entitled to the facts, so here are a few important fact checks on claims used by both sides of the argument.

When accurate, near real-time channel data is not abundantly available, sales and inventory fall one or two steps behind true customer demand. And there can be devastating results — including poor channel intelligence, delayed incentive payments or overpayments, and occasional massive write-offs caused by excess inventory stuck in the supply chain.

The union representing auto workers at General Motors' Oshawa, Ont., plant says the company must decide now what will happen to its operations there instead of waiting until after the next contract negotiations.

Pabst shut down its brewery in Milwaukee nearly 20 years ago. But now its current owner and CEO, Eugene Kashper, is looking for a location in Milwaukee to open a pilot brewery where new products could be made and sampled.

Sampath Kumar, Partner and Global Leader at ISG (Information Services Group) Engineering Services, spoke with IMPO about the important trends and growth within the Engineering Services Outsourcing Market.

Many industries, especially manufacturing, are discovering that business intelligence and more efficient use of large amounts of data help them become more agile and better equipped to respond to ever-changing markets. As a result, many companies have concluded that their legacy ERP systems are simply not up to the task, and these same companies are finding the ideal business solution in cloud-based ERP systems.